Tar sands industry is out of control in Canada

From an In-Depth Article by Drew Anderson, The Narwhal News, June 4, 2022

Mapping the growth of the toxic reservoirs shows just how far they’ve expanded since 1975, amid a surge in bitumen (tar) mining.

Picture downtown Toronto. All the condos, subways, roads, office towers and people. Now cover the whole thing with a toxic lake. Maybe you’ve never been there. Have you done the drive from Calgary into the Rockies? Imagine almost the entire 105-kilometre stretch from the city to Canmore as one continuous vista of oilsands tailing ponds.

According to a new report titled “50 Years of Sprawling Tailings” from Environmental Defence and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, those are just two examples of how large the tailings ponds in northern Alberta have grown.

And despite new rules introduced in 2016 around managing tailings, the ponds have continued to grow, according to the report. This growth represents an increasing ecological and economic risk that will cost billions of dollars to clean up and could leave taxpayers footing the bill.

So what exactly does that look like on the ground? And what impact do tailings ponds have?

Here’s a bit of background ~ What are tailings ponds?

First thing to note, and it’s something the authors of the report stress right off the top: the ponds are anything but ponds as most people understand them.

“To be calling them ponds when tailings ponds actually are far larger than anything you would ever describe as a natural pond — it’s deception,” Gillian Chow-Fraser, co-author of the report and boreal program manager for the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, says.

“I don’t think it’s being very accountable to the level of destruction that’s happening in northern Alberta.”

One of the largest ponds, notes Chow-Fraser, is eight kilometres long. That’s almost as long as Alberta’s famed Sylvan Lake. Looking further afield, that will almost get you to the top of Mount Everest.

That said, the report uses the term pond to maintain consistency while expounding on the decidedly un-pond-like size of the waste reservoirs.

Inside those ponds is a toxic mix of byproducts from the mining of oilsands, including arsenic, naphthenic acids, mercury, lead and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons — all of which can impact ecosystems, wildlife and humans.

The ponds also emit air pollution that extends for kilometres.

The purpose of the ponds is to allow the byproducts of mining to separate from the water and settle at the bottom of the pond, a process that can take decades or more. Once those byproducts are settled, the pond can be drained and capped with soil to achieve some level of reclamation.

Why are Alberta oilsands tailings ponds still growing?

The tailings ponds have been growing for nearly 50 years, increasing in size by nearly 800 per cent in the late 1970s, before continuing to grow at varying rates, depending on factors such as global demand for oil and the state of the economy. Most recently, the size of the tailings ponds grew by over 50 per cent from 2010 to 2015, and then by just over 16 per cent from 2015 to 2020, according to the report.

There are now 30 active ponds in the region, the report also says.

The authors used satellite imagery going back to 1975 to measure the physical growth of the ponds — including the fluids and the related impacts such as berms and areas where dry tailings are stored — but not the volume of tailings they hold.

For that they relied on Alberta Energy Regulator reports (more on that shortly).

Aliénor Rougeot, co-author and climate and energy program manager for Environmental Defence, says they included things like berms and beaches created by the ponds — where you would not want to sunbathe — because all of it impacts the surrounding area.

“That’s the peatlands and boreal forest that were taken away, or that’s the area that the Indigenous communities can no longer have traditional practices on,” she says.

In total, the report says the footprint is 300 square kilometres, big enough to more than twice cover the city of Vancouver or a large chunk of Toronto.

“I live in downtown Toronto, and so I think I know what large means, I think I know what human activity taking over nature looks like,” Rougeot says. “And yet when I saw the scale when I saw those maps, especially the layovers of cities. I mean, that was just baffling to me.”

Ponds increase as new expansions or new mines are approved and the existing ponds fail to shrink.

The report did not trace the rise in the volume of the ponds, but that has also increased over the years, and the report notes current levels are 1.4 trillion litres of tailings based on Alberta Energy Regulator figures.

……. much more in the Article and the Report!

Drilling, fracking and wastewater injection create underground disturbances

From an Article by Andrew Nikiforuk, The Tyee News Service, May 26, 2021

This new warning comes from a former senior scientist with the BC province’s oil and gas commission.

Since 2005, British Columbia’s experiment with hydraulic fracturing of gas wells has changed the geology of the province’s northeast. It is now home to some of the world’s largest fracking-induced earthquakes outside of China. In 2018, one magnitude 4.6 tremor tied to fracking even rattled buildings in Fort St. John and stopped construction on the Site C dam. It was followed by two strong aftershocks.

Now, a comprehensive new scientific study warns that stress changes caused by the technology could trigger a magnitude 5 earthquake or greater in the region, resulting in significant damage to dams, bridges, pipelines and cities if major regulatory and policy reforms aren’t made soon.

Allan Chapman, the author of the paper, served as a senior geoscientist for the BC Oil and Gas Commission and as its first hydrologist from 2010 to 2017. Prior to working for the commission, he directed the Ministry of Environment’s River Forecast Centre, which forecast floods and droughts.

Chapman, now an independent geoscientist, told The Tyee that he felt compelled to write the paper because researchers have concluded that fracking “induced earthquakes don’t have an upper limit” in terms of magnitude. In addition, “there is a clear and present public safety and infrastructure risk that remains unaddressed by the regulator and the B.C. government.”

The BC Oil and Gas Commission rejected Chapman’s conclusions in a statement to The Tyee, saying his study contained “speculation.”

Recent events in China’s Sichuan province prove that fracking can trigger large and destructive earthquakes. Gas drilling operations there generated shallow earthquakes between magnitude 5.3 to 5.7 in recent years that resulted in deaths, extensive property damage and angry protests by local citizens.

Chapman says the commission’s current system for managing tremors, known as a “traffic light protocol,” can’t prevent larger magnitude earthquakes because it ignores how cumulative fracking over time destabilizes shale formations with high pressures and increases seismic risk. “To protect people and infrastructure, we are going to have to avoid fracking in some areas,” he told The Tyee.

Public infrastructure placed at risk by fracking now includes “the communities of Dawson Creek, Fort St. John, Taylor, Hudson’s Hope, Upper Halfway (Halfway River First Nation) and possibly others, and infrastructure such as the WAC Bennett, Peace Canyon and Site C dams, community water supply and treatment systems, the Taylor Gas Plant, the Taylor Bridge crossing of the Peace River, numerous earthen water storage dams, and others,” said the paper.

The Taylor Bridge, for example, was built in 1960 prior to the fracking boom, which has changed both seismic patterns and risks in the region. The bridge, now deteriorating, is responsible for transporting millions of dollars of merchandise, food and fuel every hour between Fort St. John and Dawson Creek in the province’s Peace Region.

More fracking, more tremors

Given that 60 to 70 per cent of earthquakes greater than magnitude 3 are already caused by hydraulic fracturing in the giant Montney shale formation that straddles B.C.’s border with Alberta, Chapman forecasts more and larger tremors in the future.

One factor, he says, is accelerated drilling to serve Shell’s LNG Canada project in Kitimat, B.C. Another factor he cites is that the injecting of fracking fluid deep into the ground appears to have a cumulative effect.

Chapman’s study documents how fracking-induced earthquakes “increase in both frequency and magnitude in relation to frack fluid injection volumes, and that there appears to be a cumulative development effect where prior frack fluid injection possibly resets the seismic potential in certain tectonic environments to allow for eased earthquake initiation related to future lower-volume injections.”

As a consequence, writes Chapman, “the future in the Montney is not if earthquakes greater in magnitude than 5 will occur, but when, with that occurrence possibly without any precursor warning.”

Chapman’s study, published in the Journal of Geoscience and Environmental Protection this week, also sheds a light on companies triggering the earthquakes as well as the inadequacy of current mitigation measures and legislation.

Hydraulic fracturing blasts large volumes of pressurized water, sand and chemicals deep into concrete-like shale formations one to two kilometres in the Earth. That force shatters rock underground with a network of fractures so that methane, oil or natural gas liquids can be released. It can also connect to natural faults triggering swarms of earthquakes.

‘Speculation’ says oil and gas commission

In a statement to The Tyee, the BC Oil and Gas Commission outright rejected Chapman’s analysis. “Our geological and engineering experts have concluded it is based on a number of unproven assumptions or incomplete consideration of the factors cited.”

The commission added that the paper didn’t look at Montney’s structural setting, fault types and local rock stress. It added: “Speculation such as is in this paper requires expertise in seismology, fracturing, reservoir engineering, ground motion and critical infrastructure. All of the commission’s research and changes to regulatory framework are vetted through partner organizations that retain full-time, trained seismologists.”

The commission did not specifically answer questions from The Tyee on the adequacy of the traffic light protocol in the Montney. The commission is entirely funded by industry.

Unlike most papers on fracking and earthquakes, Chapman’s study is one of the first to name companies responsible for large tremors in northeastern B.C. The scientist said he did so for reasons of accountability. “It is in the public interest for their names to be known.”

Since 2012, 77 per cent of the earthquakes triggered by fracking in the Montney have been caused by three companies: Petronas, Tourmaline Oil and Ovintiv (formerly Encana).

Petronas, a Malaysian company, holds the record for most quakes. Its fracking activities are associated with 78 per cent of the earthquakes in the northern Montney and almost one-half the earthquakes in the entire Montney over the 2013 to 2019 period.

Researchers estimate that one out of 150 wells fracked wells in Western Canada will trigger a magnitude 3 tremor. But Chapman found that that 1.7 per cent of fracked wells (about one out of 60 wells) in B.C. are associated with earthquakes with magnitudes of 3 and up. That’s nearly double the rate of earlier research.

The Montney shale formation, which contains both methane and liquid condensates, sits under a vast area of timber, farmland and wilderness on 26,600 square kilometres of Treaty 8 land extending from south of the community of Dawson Creek to 200 kilometres northwest of the community of Fort St. John.

Between 2012 and 2019, nearly a dozen companies have fracked 2,865 wells with 39 million cubic metres of water in the Montney. The volume of pressurized water used per well has increased steadily in recent years from an average of 7,077 cubic metres per well in 2012 to 22,054 cubic metres per well in 2019.

Many operators including Ovintiv, Petronas and CNRL have fracked wells using more than 30,000 cubic metres per well. ConocoPhillips stands out for using 83,000 cubic metres per well for 13 wells in 2019.

Beginning in 2008, industry started to trigger “felt” earthquakes greater than magnitude 3, raising concerns throughout the region. B.C. and Alberta regulators initially denied the industry could cause earthquakes that significant and then called them “anomalous” or minimized their shaking motions to a truck driving by.

As industry injected more volumes of water into the ground to fracture gas-bearing rock, the frequency of earthquakes jumped from an average of 1.6 magnitude 3 quakes a year to almost 6.9 magnitude 3 tremors by 2019. Petronas led with the highest earthquake rate: “39 per cent of its fracked wells are associated with earthquakes,” followed by Tourmaline Oil with 29 per cent and Ovintiv at nine per cent.

Part 2 — To appear tomorrow ….

Recycling of plastics now problematic

From an Article by Renzo Pipoli, Reuters Events, October 27, 2020

The Canadian federal government announced in October plans to ban six very commonly used single-use plastic items by the end of 2021 to tackle a pollution problem that became more pressing after China banned plastic waste imports in 2018.

Canada’s Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said the ban is part of a broader plan to reach zero plastic waste within a decade that will also include making plastic producers responsible for waste. Only plastics considered both harmful to the environment and costly to recycle were listed.

The coming ban on bags and six-pack rings will affect polyethylene while the one on straws will impact polypropylene (PP). Bans on plastic cutlery and drink stirrers will affect both PP and polystyrene. Bans on plastic food containers will hit expanded polystyrene.

The Canadian government has asked for feedback by December 9th. The ban will not come into effect until the end of 2021.

The planned bans in Canada are part of an international growing tendency, said Ashish Chitalia, Wood Mackenzie’s research director. “That is a trend that we’re seeing since 2018 as it all started when China banned the imports of plastic waste, and that has encouraged exporters of plastic waste, like North America, Europe, to improve their policies and reduce plastic waste at the source,” Chitalia said.

Industry to be responsible for plastic waste collection

The China ban, “along with social pressure to tackle the plastic waste in the environment and landfills,” are encouraging regulators to consider stemming the plastic waste at the source,” Chitalia added.

Wilkinson said single-use plastics easier to collect and recycle were not included.“The focus is on plastics that are particularly problematic, and that is particularly things like expandable polystyrene or Styrofoam,” he said. For example, drink containers and lids were not included, Wilkinson added on an Oct. 7 interview with CTV News.

“The broader part of this plan is to make producers and vendors responsible for the collection and recycling, to set requirements in terms of the amount of product that has to be recycled, to require recycled content standards,” he said.

There is an urgent need in Canada to tackle the plastic waste problem, he explained. “Last year 29,000 tonnes of plastic ended up in our environment. Most of it in our lakes, our rivers, and our ocean,” he said.

Other plans include incentives to consider recyclability in product design, and mandating minimum recycled components in manufacturing.

“When we throw away plastics that don’t get recycled we waste C$8 billion worth of material every year so there’s an opportunity to make sure we’re making good value and good use of resources,” Wilkinson said.

Canadian plastic waste exports under study

According to a 2019 report by Greenpeace about Canadian waste exports following China’s import ban in the preceding year, Canadian plastic waste exporters have struggled to find destinations.

In 2015 Canada exported to China, including Hong Kong, 100,618 tonnes of plastic waste, according to Greenpeace. Then came China’s January 2018 ban on 24 materials, including eight plastics. Since the ban, waste exporters have diverted shipping to countries including Malaysia, Taiwan and several others, but divided in smaller volumes, according to Greenpeace.

Results of a Greenpeace investigation of waste plastic found in unlicensed facilities in Malaysia detected Canadian labels in the plastic waste found there, the report said. Greenpeace called on the Canadian government to meet obligations under the Basel convention on the control of trans-boundary movements of hazardous wastes and their disposal.

U.S. companies warn against plastics ban

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce sent on Sept. 21 a letter to Mary Ng, Canada’s minister of international trade, undersigned by over 50 associations representing plastics from adhesives to vinyl, to warn that the ban undermines free-trade agreements.

“The proposed ban on any product containing plastic and manufactured in the U.S. clearly meets the definition of a non-tariff barrier,” the letter said. A ban “would have a disproportionate trade impact, given the $12.1 billion of manufactured plastic that enters Canada from the United States every year,” it added.

“That is exclusive of other products (like cars, medical supplies and devices, and information technology products) that contain plastic components or goods that require plastic to prevent contamination, such as food,” it added. “Such a precedent would create further incentives to ban trade by other governments, which could impact over $10 billion in Canadian exports of plastics and plastic products,” it added.

Industry concerned about ‘toxic’ designation

Both the U.S. and Canadian plastic industries object to the use of the word ‘toxic’ to describe plastics. “Consumers would assume that every day and essential products that contain plastic are now toxic,” the U.S. Chamber of Commerce letter said.

The Chemistry Industry Association of Canada (CIAC) on Oct. 7 shared the U.S. concern about the designation of plastics as ‘toxic’ and about using the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA) to regulate plastic disposal.

Wilkinson has said that if the issue around the word ‘toxic’ is one of nomenclature, the government is open to discussions but will not renounce efforts to protect the environment.

The CIAC has also shown concern about increased carbon taxation.

Canadian industry warns against ‘premature’ decisions

The Canadian government should not take “premature” decisions, the CIAC added.

Canada’s plastics producers are improving design for recycle and reuse models; and investing in recycling, it said. The industry’s own goals aim for products becoming fully recyclable or recoverable by 2030, while all plastic should be reused, recycled or recovered by 2040.

Programs to eliminate plastic pellets release from industry operations into rivers and oceans will be in place by 2022.

Canada’s plastics manufacturers add C$28 billion to the economy annually and employ 93,000 Canadians, it said. According to Wood Mackenzie’s Chitalia, the ban “gives an opportunity for Canadian producers of bioplastics to penetrate single-use plastics markets.”

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See also: Plastic Pollution Coalition calls out retailers ….

Calling on AMAZON: “Ditch Single-Use Plastic Packaging”

It’s time to stop plastics pollution everywhere

Alberta Canada Earthquakes & Fracking

Groundbreaking Study Shows Direct Link Between Fracking and Earthquakes

From an Article by Lorraine Chow, EcoWatch.com, November 18, 2016

IMAGE: Seismicity of northwestern Alberta, Canada for the period 1985−2016. The size of the dot correlates to the magnitude of the earthquake. Xuewei Bao and David Eaton

Geoscientists have revealed a direct link between hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and earthquakes in Canada. The groundbreaking study found that earthquakes can even occur intermittently over several months after drilling operations end.

According to a new study published in the journal Science, seismic activity in northwest Alberta over the last five years were likely caused by fracking, in which chemically-laden water and sand is injected at high pressures into shale formations to release oil or gas.

The article, Fault activation by hydraulic fracturing in western Canada, was authored by Xuewei Bao and David Eaton from the University of Calgary.

For the study, the researchers mapped out more than 900 seismic events near Duvernay shale drilling sites around the Fox Creek area dating back to December 2014. This included a 4.8-magnitude earthquake in January in northern Alberta that’s likely the strongest fracking-induced earthquake ever.

They found that there were two main causes for quakes. The first was immediately from pressure increases as the fracking process occurred. “We were able to show that what was driving that was very small changes in stress within the Earth that were produced by the hydraulic fracturing operations,” Eaton told DeSmogBlog.

The second cause comes from pressure changes from lingering fracking fluid. According to the Globe and Mail, a fault shakes when fluids infiltrate tiny spaces in the porous rock and increases pore pressure. “If that pressure increases, it can have an effect on the frictional characteristics of faults,” Eaton told the Globe and Mail. “It can effectively jack open a fault if the pore pressure increases within the fault itself and make it easier for a slip to initiate.”

Per the study abstract, “Patterns of seismicity indicate that stress changes during operations can activate fault slip to an offset distance of >1 km, whereas pressurization by hydraulic fracturing into a fault yields episodic seismicity that can persist for months.”

Eaton told DeSmogBlog that a “majority of injection-induced earthquakes are actually linked to hydraulic fracturing” in Canada.

The new study is not related to the recent spate of induced earthquakes currently rocking midwestern states, most notoriously Oklahoma. Those quakes are not likely caused by fracking itself but from the injection of large volumes of oil and gas wastewater into deep underground wells.

“The key message is that the primary cause of injection-induced seismicity in Western Canada is different from the central United States,” Eaton told the New York Times, adding that their study could help regulators craft guidelines to avoid more human-caused earthquakes. 

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It’s Official: Injection of Fracking Wastewater Caused Kansas’ Biggest Earthquake

From Lorraine Chow, EcoWatch.com, October 14, 2016

The largest earthquake ever recorded in Kansas—a 4.9 magnitude temblor that struck northeast of Milan on Nov. 12, 2014—has been officially linked to wastewater injection into deep underground wells, according to new research from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The epicenter of that extremely rare earthquake struck near a known fracking operation.

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Oklahoma’s Latest Fracking-Related Earthquake Sparks Demand for Withdrawal of Oil and Gas Leases

From the Center for Biological Diversity, EcoWatch.com, November 8, 2016

Sunday’s earthquake that damaged dozens of buildings near an oil and gas pipeline hub in Cushing, Oklahoma, is further proof that fracking and wastewater injection are too dangerous to people and property to be allowed to continue, the Center for Biological Diversity said Monday. In May, the organization called on the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to withdraw 11 proposed oil and gas leases in Oklahoma because of earthquake risks. The BLM has yet to respond to that request.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Canadian forest fire hazard areas

Massive Canada wildfire spreads south forcing more evacuations

Update news report, BBC News Service, May 5, 2016

A massive wildfire is raging in Alberta and has grown to 210,000 acres (328.2 sq miles), with 88,000 people facing their second evacuation in three days.

The blaze has grown five times its initial size as it spreads south, prompting more than 88,000 residents of the Fort McMurray area to evacuations. But 25,000 of those people who left their homes on Tuesday and moved north may now have to be resettled again.

“Our focus right now is on getting those people south as quickly as possible,” said the Alberta premier. Urban areas in the south are better able to support the displaced, officials said.

The fire is growing in size due to high winds but it is “under control”, said Rachel Notley.

The fire started on Sunday in Canada’s oil sands region and many oil sands projects have cut production. There are still no known casualties from the fire but there was at least one vehicle crash with fatalities on the evacuation route.

Scott Long of the Alberta Emergency Management Agency called the blaze “an extreme fire event” and that rain would be needed to fight it. Cooler temperatures and rain are forecast, giving hope that it could become easier to contain the fire.

• 49 wildfires in total
• seven are ‘out of control’
• more than 1,100 firefighters
• 145 helicopters
• 138 pieces of heavy equipment
• 22 air tankers

The fire has knocked out nearly a third of the country’s daily crude capacity. At least 64,000 barrels of crude output is offline as a result of the fire, according to Reuters.

‘It’s catastrophic’ said a fleeing resident. Szymon Bicz had to leave most of his belongings behind in Fort McMurray.

“The smoke was really overpowering. It was a terrifying experience,” says Szymon Bicz, who fled his home. “Thick black smoke was closing in and surrounded the car. People were driving up on paths and grass verges just to get out of there. I’m hoping my rented house is still intact but I just don’t know. “The whole region is at risk. It’s absolutely catastrophic.”

‘It just doesn’t seem real’ said Fort McMurray residents as they flee their homes

Residents north of Fort McMurray are being told to shelter in place. The blaze grew close to the local airport on Thursday, with the CBC reporting that some buildings have been destroyed, but the main terminal is still intact. All flights are cancelled.

“It is a possibility that we may lose a large portion of the town,” Scott Long, an official with Alberta’s emergency management agency told Reuters.  Thousands have stayed in arenas, hockey rinks and school gymnasiums, some with little food and other resources.Authorities in Alberta have called the fire “catastrophic”.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Thursday that the federal government will match donations to the Canadian Red Cross to assist those affected by the fire.

“The outpouring of good will and compassion from Canadians right across the country has not only been inspirational, it has been entirely characteristic of who we are and the fundamental human values we share as Canadians,” Mr Trudeau said.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

PA & WV Ethane going West & East

Nova Chemicals updating neighbours on pipeline plan at Sarnia (Canada)

From a Press Release of Nova Chemicals, Sarnia Observer (Canada), January 15, 2015

Nova Chemicals is considering a four-kilometre pipeline project to connect its Corunna petrochemical facility to a secondary feedstock source. The pipeline is one of the proposed projects the company plans to provide updates on during a public information meeting set for January 22, 2015

The proposed Kimball pipeline project would replace a dormant four-inch pipeline with a four-km, 12-inch pipeline in an existing right of way, connecting the Corunna site to Plains Midstream’s Windsor-Sarnia pipeline near Kimball Sideroad and a secondary source of natural gas liquids feedstock originating in the Utica shale area of the U.S.

“This is all part of our continued revitalization of our eastern assets,” said Rob Thompson, Nova’s regional operations leader. Nova recently completed work to connect its Corunna facility by pipeline to natural gas liquids from the Eastern U.S. Marcellus shale region.

Also, Nova just recently converted its Corunna facility to use up to 100% feedstock from natural gas liquids. “Currently, we’re operating this facility 100% natural gas liquid feed” from the Marcellus shale pipeline connection, Thompson said.

The proposed pipeline project “will get us a secondary feed source,” he added. “It’s about reliability of the plant,” Thompson said. “It will give us opportunities, in case there’s issues with supply or pipeline reliability.”

Previously, the Corunna facility’s feedstock had been a combination of natural gas liquids and oil. “By switching to this newer feedstock, we’ve taken out the volatility of being tied to crude oil,” allowing the operation “to be much more stable than we would have been,” Thompson said.

He said construction on the Kimball pipeline replacement project could begin in the summer of 2016.  As well as replacing an existing smaller pipeline, the project would remove a dormant eight-inch pipeline from the right of way.

Last fall, Nova Chemicals said a new long-term agreement with the Kinder Morgan Energy Partners pipeline company would provide access to ethane and ethane-propane mixtures from the Utica shale region, through a 380-kilometre, 75,000 barrel-a-day pipeline to be built from Harrison County, Ohio to Michigan, where it can connect to Ontario.

The Jan. 22 meeting will also provide information on Nova’s other proposed capital projects. “Over the last 10 years, Nova’s invested basically $1 billion in capital in Sarnia-Lambton,” Thompson said. “We’re going to give the community an update on the status of each one of those projects.”

In late 2013, Nova Chemicals said it was considering spending another $300 million expanding ethylene manufacturing capacity by 20% at Corunna, as well as upgrading polyethylene capacity at its Moore site. Engineering work for those projects is underway but construction is still waiting for corporate approval, Thompson said. Nova has already applied for provincial environmental approval for the Corunna expansion, Thompson said.

The company is also still considering building a new polyethylene plant in Ontario, or on the U.S. Gulf coast. “We continue to study that facility to determine the best location, and potential timing for construction,” Thompson said. “It’s more positive today than it was a year ago,” he added.

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Qatar Petroleum and Shell not to pursue Al Karaana petrochemicals project

From an Article in OilVoice, January 14, 2015

Qatar Petroleum and Shell have decided not to proceed with the proposed Al Karaana petrochemicals project, and to stop further work on the project. The decision came after a careful and thorough evaluation of commercial quotations from EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) bidders, which showed high capital costs rendering it commercially unfeasible, particularly in the current economic climate prevailing in the energy industry.

The Al Karaana project was initiated with a Heads of Agreement (HOA) between QP and Shell in December 2011, and envisioned the construction of a new world-scale petrochemicals complex in the Ras Laffan Industrial City north of Qatar. The complex was to be operated as a stand-alone QP-Shell joint venture (80% QP, 20% Shell).

QP and Shell’s existing partnerships include Pearl GTL — the world’s largest integrated gas-to-liquids plant located at Ras Laffan, which has boosted Qatar’s position as the world’s GTL capital. The partnerships also include Qatargas 4 — an integrated Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) asset — in addition to joint downstream and upstream investments in Singapore and Brazil.

See also:  www.FrackCheckWV.net

Shale Fracking Pollutes the Environment

Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard Rejects Shale Gas Exploitation On Fracking Concerns

From an Article in the Canadian Press, Huffington Post, December 16, 2014

MONTREAL – Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard says he is not interested in exploiting the province’s shale gas reserves. He tells the CBC’s French-language service that Quebecers are largely against hydraulic fracturing.

Couillard made the comments shortly after Quebec’s environmental review board concluded the environmental and social risks associated with hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” outweigh the financial benefits. Fracking is a process whereby a pressurized fluid is injected into shale rock in order to crack the rock and release underground natural gas deposits.

The environmental review board noted that fracking risks contaminating surface and underground water basins and that citizens living along the St. Lawrence River are against the practice. Quebec imposed a moratorium on drilling exploratory fracking wells in 2011.

Also on HuffPost:

Drilling And Fracking Photos 1 of 31

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Marcellus ethane increasingly important in Canada

From an Article by Stephanie Novak, Pittsburgh Business Times, March 14, 2014

Ethane was initially viewed as a problem for Marcellus gas, making it too rich to pass through normal pipelines, said Pace Markowitz, director of communications at Nova chemicals, with offices in Pittsburgh.

Nova announced in December of last year it would begin converting Marcellus ethane into ethylene or polyethylene for petrochemical use. The company plans to complete the upgrades to facilities early next quarter, Markowitz said. When facilities are complete, pipeline capacity will accommodate 50,000 barrels of ethane per day, NOVA said. The plastics company said it would consume 37,000 barrels of the product at their Sarnia, Ontario petrochemical facility.

If production rates continue as expected, Marcellus production will exceed that of Canada this year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s monthly drilling productivity report. Range Resources supplies Nova with a significant portion of its ethane. When ethane is converted for petrochemical use, much of it comes back to the United States as polyethylene, which many manufacturing companies use in plastics products throughout the country. Roughly 60 percent of ethylene is converted to polyethylene, said Markowitz, of Nova.

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Low ethane prices have persisted in the U.S. (See graph above)

From the Article by Ingrid Pan, Market Realist, March 17, 2014

Ethane prices have experienced a steep decline over the past few years, due to a flush supply from active drilling in the U.S. Ethane prices (as priced at the natural gas liquids hub of Mont Belvieu) were mostly above $1.00 per gallon in early 2008, before the financial crisis later in the year. During the period of depressed commodity prices in late 2008 and 2009, ethane prices were ~$0.40 to ~$0.60 per gallon, in correlation with most other natural gas liquids and crude oil.

After that, the price of ethane per gallon traded mostly within the range of $0.60 to $1.00 per gallon through 2010 and 2011, as other NGLs and crude also traded up. However, from 2012 through now, ethane prices have remained very low, on both absolute and relative bases. Over the past two years, ethane prices have remained mostly below $0.40 per gallon. Plus, where ethane historically traded at prices of around 30% to 50% of WTI crude (per barrel), in 2012, it began to average at 10% to 20% of WTI crude.

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Middle East petchem industry switching from ethane to heavier feedstocks

From an Article of ICIS News, March 11, 2014

LONDON (ICIS)–The Middle East petrochemicals industry is increasingly shifting from using ethane as a primary feedstock to heavier slates, according to the CEO of Petrochemical Industries Co., a subsidiary of Kuwait Petroleum Corp.

Asaad Ahmad Alsaad said heavier slates including condensate, butane and propane were being looked at more and more as feedstocks to prepare for a potential ethane shortage in coming years.

Alsaad – whose remarks will be explored at the World Refining Association’s (WRA’s) Abu Dhabi International Downstream Conference in May – also observed that the Middle Eastern petrochemicals industry was moving to full integration with refineries that would bring bigger balance sheets and new technology allowing for more feedstock flexibility.

A horrible decision against Jessica Ernst, Landowner, Rosebud, Alberta, Canada

Article by S. Tom Bond, Retired Chemistry Professor and Resident Farmer, Lewis County, WV

 Alberta, Canada, is a province lying in and east of the Rocky Mountains, north of Montana and up to the 60th parallel. In it lie Edmonton and Calgary, large cities, so that only 19% of the 3.6 million total population live in  rural areas.  It is the home of the fabulously beautiful location, sometimes called Superman Country, where part of the movie Superman was filmed.  It is also the home of vast deposits of hydrocarbons: coal, gas and the famous Athabasca Tar Sands.  Alberta is the largest producer of crude oil, synthetic crude, natural gas and gas products in Canada. Alberta is the world’s second largest exporter of natural gas and the fourth largest producer.

That is the background of our story (and incidentally sheds some light on the Keystone XL pipeline).  The hydrocarbon industry in Alberta is a political power that makes Texas look downright democratic.

The heroine of this story is Jessica Ernst, a substantial landowner near Rosebud, Alberta.  In 2003 EnCana, the second largest gas producer in Canada, used hydraulic fracturing in a coalbed under her land to stimulate production of coalbed methane.   Discernable changes began to take place in the local wells in 2004 and by 2005 Jessica’s well water “began dramatically changing, going bad.  I was getting horrible burns and rashes from taking a shower, and then my dogs refused to drink the water. That’s when I began to pay attention.” At least fifteen water-wells had gone bad in the little community.  Ernst says she heard from “at least fifty other landowners the first year” she went public, and she continues to get calls. Groundwater contamination from fracking “is pretty widespread” in Alberta, “but they’re trying to keep it hidden.”

Jessica Ernst is the wrong person to pick on.  She has a degree in Biology and a Masters in Pathology, and worked twenty five years for the oil and gas industry as an environmental consultant, plus she has a lot of the at old-fashioned virtue “pluck.”  Her company, Ernst Environmental Services, was consulting for EnCana at the time it began its shale gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing operations in Rosebud.

Persistent use of Freedom of Information found Alberta Province environmental officials had discovered hexavalent  chromium in Rosebud’s well  water!  And a gas well casing had lost it’s integrity – in other words, allowed contents of the gas well to escape. 

Hexavalent chromium, also known as chromium-6, you will remember, is what Erin Brockovich found in Hinkley, Californina drinking water.  It is a very powerful poison, which has the capacity to change DNA and cause cancer.  It is toxic in the low parts per billion range.  Pacific Gas and Water paid $333M as a result of the law suit in California. 

Jessica Ernst says chromium-6 “is used in fracking and drilling.”

(Incidentally, Erin Brockovich is also involved with a mile-long plume of chromium-6 contamination of drinking water – apparently caused by fracking and drilling – in Midland, Texas.  A suit against Dow Chemical, Schlumberger, Schlumberger Technology Corp. and Lear Corporation were filed on behalf of 250 western Texas residents in 2011. )

The reaction of EnCana was what everyone by now expects of corporations: denial.  In January of 2011 the Energy Resources Conservation Board of Alberta released a report that recognized the possibility of hydraulic fracturing  contaminating usable aquifers.

A suit was launched about the problems of Ernst and her neighbors in 2007.  The Alberta court dragged its feet. Not only was the gas industry being attacked, but also the Provincial regulatory agency.  The first response was to require the claim to be re-written within 60 days.

On April 27, 2011 lawyers representing Jessica Ernst, filed an “amended” claim alleging EnCana broke multiple provincial laws and regulations and contaminated with natural gas and toxic industry-related chemicals a shallow aquifer used by a rural community.  It also alleges that the Energy Resources Conservation Board has repeatedly, despite numerous reports of suspected water contamination, assured the citizens there is no problem.  Also that it tried to suppress complaints and “has in fact served as a governmental cover-up of environmental contamination caused by the oil and gas industry.”

When the case had dragged on about as long as it could at this stage, the trial judge was promoted, causing further confusion and delay.

The most recent decision is the real horror, though.  The court rejected the Government of Alberta’s attempt to attack portions of the lawsuit, thus allowing the claim against the Government and EnCana to go ahead.  However, the court found the Energy Resources Conservation Board had been granted complete immunity by the Provincial government!  Thus the part of the suit against the ERCB was dismissed!

“Chief Justice Wittmann ruled the ERCB does not owe any legally enforceable duties to protect individual landowners from the harmful effects of fracking, after the ERCB argued in court it had total immunity for “not only negligence, but gross negligence, bad faith and even deliberate acts,” and therefore Albertans simply could not sue the ERCB, no matter how badly they were harmed by the ERCB’s acts. Ms. Ernst was ordered to pay the ERCB’s costs.”

So if the energy regulator won’t protect the citizens and the environment, who will?  Is the ERCB only to facilitate extraction, even by putting itself between what is done by the company and the health and welfare of the citizens?  Only the company has responsibility to the citizens where it operates?  Cm’ on, Canada!  The corporations are as predictable as tapeworms – they take all they can get.  You can do better than THAT for your people!